One day, violence breaks out in a particular region, for reasons hard to grasp. It may be related to religious agitation, or violent capitalism, scarce resources, bloodthirsty war profiteers, injustice in the distribution of land, foreign powers, or a traumatic past. There are plenty of possible reasons for people to slaughter one another. And we spectators say, this is not humane. And it really isn’t, although such a breakdown of civility is experienced by humans again and again.

On the 3500-kilometer journey from a now deserted home in Aleppo to Vienna, a Syrian refugee has to witness and endure the state of humanity and humaneness in our time. By trying to perceive the world through the eyes of someone who sets off to seek refuge, an unmasking prospect unfolds ­– of devastating human experiences, of a catastrophe emerging from an endless chain of atrocities and neglect; but also of support and empathy. The exhibition “when home won’t let you stay” focuses on these astonishingly varied shades of humanity and examines the notion of humaneness in the early 21st century. It interrogates what it means to be human today, in contrast to the ideals of humaneness and human rights. The exhibition asks about the possibilities of socio-economic and political developments towards a more conscious co-existence; not only so as a temporary solution to this immediate catastrophe – the so-called refugee crisis – but also as a confrontation with our individual and communal approaches to being human.

Borrowing its title from a line of the poem “Home” by Warsan Shire, the exhibition attempts to elucidate the journeys of the displaced between their lost homes and the new ones that will have to be built.